NEW YORK, NY – OCTOBER 01: (L-R) Mashonda, Alicia Keys, Kasseem Dean Jr., and Swizz Beatz attend the ‘Blend’ Book Launch Party on October 1, 2018 in New York City. (Photo by Johnny Nunez/WireImage)

With any mention of the name Alicia Keys, you’ll find a community of people who are hellbent on telling the world that she’s a homewrecker. They’re still carrying around old hurt from the way they think things went down with Mashonda Tifrere and Swizz Beatz ended their marriage. It’s a hurt that Mashonda herself no longer carries. So much so, that she’s literally written a book about how she, Keys and Swizz have blended their family.

She sat down with “The Breakfast Club,” to discuss not only the book but how she moved past some of the pain she broadcast in 2009. She mentions regretting the way she behaved at the time, posting on social media and writing about her feelings in the moment, rather than thinking ahead toward the future. She also speaks about the new relationship she’s forged with Swizz, Alicia and even their children.

See what she had to say on the following pages. It’s pretty mature and powerful stuff.

A post shared by Mashonda (@mashondatifrere) on Oct 2, 2018 at 10:47am PDT

Why Blend: the book and the lifestyle

We have accomplished something our culture truly doesn’t understand. So it’s a gift from us to the world. Our children are going to look back, they’re going to read it and be proud.

You really have to do the self-work before you can get to the place where you can evolve.

EAST HAMPTON, NY – JULY 24: Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys attend the Art For Life East Hampton 11th Annual Benefit at Russell Simmons’ East Hampton Estate on July 24, 2010 in East Hampton, New York. (Photo by Jerritt Clark/Getty Images)

The notion that Alicia was a home wrecker

I have never used that word once. It was not a word that I felt good about. We had a lot of miscommunication in the beginning and we have worked through it. When I say worked through it, we have sat at tables together and discussed everything from the beginning to where we are now. And we do this often.

NEW YORK – JANUARY 14: (L-R) Recording artist Mashonda, her son Kasseem Dean Jr., and father and recording artist Swizz Beatz arrives at Mashonda and Swizz Beatz’s Baby Shower at 26 January 14, 2007 in New York City. (Photo by Ray Tamarra/Getty Images)

When she knew she had to make a change

When you have children and your children have questions and you can feel their energy shifting based on the energy that you’re giving them—if you’re a good parent, you know that you have to make the change. My son was a baby, he was like four or five and when he was six, he really started having questions. And I didn’t want him growing up, feeling the way that I felt through my whole adolescence. You take all of that stuff into your adulthood, and I didn’t want that for him so i knew it was time to start making conscious choices and decisions.

Mashonda and Swizz Beatz during Giant Soul Volume 2 Sponsored by Universal Motown Records Group at Cielo in New York City, New York, United States. (Photo by Johnny Nunez/WireImage)

Convo with Swizz

I texted him and said, ‘Hey can we jump on a call.’ And the reason for that is, I was getting feedback from my son’s school. He was acting out in class. He was being emotional. And it was all coming back to his home. And I got on the phone with [Swizz] and we just laid it all out. We yelled, we screamed, we went through all the emotions. And then we just agreed to disagree on some things. But what we agreed on the most is that we were going to change to make this better for our son.

A post shared by Mashonda (@mashondatifrere) on Jul 15, 2018 at 12:58pm PDT

Why she wanted to be the one to tell her son ‘Daddy has a girlfriend.’

I felt that it was really important for it to come from me because he looks at me, like I’m his everything. So if I’m saying it’s okay, he knows it’s okay and he can be comfortable in his own skin and he can show Alicia affection without feeling like ‘Mommy’s going to be mad, Mommy’s going to be jealous.’ A lot of women do that for their children and it just creates all these dysfunctions and emotional disabilities when they grow up and I just didn’t want that for my son.

A post shared by Mashonda (@mashondatifrere) on Mar 10, 2018 at 2:30pm PST

Her relationships

First of all, I’ve never felt like I needed to be in a relationship with somebody to feel whole. I would never bring someone around my son or my family if I didn’t feel like they were the absolute correct person.

I 100% do that for my son because I do that for my son.

NEW YORK – MAY 31: Recording artist, Mashonda, attends her “Black Out” video shoot May 31, 2005 in New York City. (Photo by Ray Tamarra/Getty Images)

Breaking up in the public space

Our culture has really got it messed up. People sit behind their screens and they pretty much depend on other people’s downfalls to make themselves feel really good and I fed into that. I wanted to be validated. I wanted to voice my opinion and I wanted people to be on my side. And I really got caught up in that. And there was no growth from it and I felt really bad about all of it. If you look back now, it doesn’t look good. No one’s going to evolve from that.

And you don’t ever think my kid is going to be 20 one day and he’s going to see this stuff and his kids are going to see it. And no one thinks that far ahead. I had done tons of interviews, just running off at the mouth. I was living in the moment, I wasn’t thinking about the higher version of Mashonda.

A post shared by Mashonda (@mashondatifrere) on Apr 17, 2018 at 2:20pm PDT

What’s helped her move forward

You don’t have to apologize to people and say, ‘I’m sorry for doing this.’ All we wanted to hear from each other was ‘We know that we could have done things better. We could have handled this better. We could have taken care of each other’s feelings better.’ And that’s what fuels me to move forward in a peaceful way.

NEW YORK, NY – OCTOBER 01: Mashonda (L) and Alicia Keys attend the “Blend” Book Launch Party on October 1, 2018 in New York City. (Photo by Johnny Nunez/WireImage)

Her relationship with Alicia

I love her. I really do. She’s an amazing co-parent. The way she loves my son, it’s next level. She is the epitome of a bonus mother. She takes care of my son and we’re on the phone almost every other day, scheduling something. She picks him up from school. There was a time when Swizz couldn’t make it to a parents-teacher meeting and she asked if he could come and I was like, ‘Wow, you’re really going out of your way for this.’ We went together and it was so dope. People were looking at us like ‘Wow.’ This is what I mean, she has put in the effort to prove to me that she is going to be there and do what she has to do for our son.